Dave shrugged. “Thereabouts. She don’t look over twenty-two.”

“Eyes,” Czar said. “Eyes.” His right foot, in the shabby scuffed shoe, began to waggle now as it dangled, the right knee crossed over the left. “You fit her up with that coat and so on, Dave? That’s a real nice coat.”

“Say, she’s the girl supposed to be marrying Bay, what do you think I’d fix her up with! One of those Eskimo parkas? We’re paying her good for this, Bay don’t know that. You know why she’s here and she knows why, and it looks like everybody’ll know why pretty soon if we don’t look out. Well, Bay’s consented to go through with this little hocus-pocus, set him up for Governor of Alaska and so on, so Chris will maybe change her mind about him, marry him. He’s still stuck on her—if he’s stuck on anybody—sometimes I wonder if he’s—I swear to God—anyway, Dina’s made a play for him for two three years now, the damn little bitch.”

“Why, you’re real touchy, Dave, a person would think you were the one supposed to be in love with the girl.” At a snort from Dave, Czar raised a placating palm. “Just my little joke, boy.” His hand now went to his head, he ruffled the silver plumes of his hair. “Truth is, I don’t know as I really go along with this little plan.”

“What’s that!” Husack yelled. “Last month in Seattle—–”

“I know, I know. But I’m not sure that I can see my granddaughter mixed up in a plant like this. She’s difficult at times, and she’s under the influence of Thor and those Barnetts, and that bunch of—uh—radicals, shall we say? But this little sight-seeing tour, with that girl supposed to drive Chris crazy with jealousy, or something. Why, say, Chris is too smart for that. That’s like a movie plot in the old days before the talkies came in. Christine is headstrong and impractical and high-falutin sometimes, but she isn’t dumb.”

“Why, you double-crossing bastard!” Dave Husack pulled his huge bulk out of the deep-cushioned chair. A curious lavender-red flush mottled his cheeks. “I get this all set, I come up to this Godforsaken dump, I haul Bay up here, we know we can get this whole thing set so we’ll have the whole Territory sewed up, from Juneau to Barrow, and from Bristol Bay to Demarcation Point. All of it. Fish and fur and oil and metals and timber.”

“Got it now,” Czar said, sweetly.

“We’ll have it cinched for the next God knows how long. Twenty-five years. Fifty.”

“I sometimes wonder why we do it,” Czar mused. “You’ve got more money than you know what to do with, now.”

“Oh, Christ’s sake, Czar, who do you think you’re talking to! Don’t try to make with that dreamy stuff. Not with me. This is Dave Husack. Remember?”

He was breathing hard, and thumping his chest.

“Boys, boys!” said Sid Kleet.

He had quietly taken a sheaf of papers out of his brief case. He was matter-of-fact, precise, no trace of emotion of any kind marked his expression or his speech.